Tag Archives: Relationships

Lately, as I examine my personal life, I realized that I have girlfriends on the other end of the world from me, but I don’t have the same solid group here at home as I had when I was in high school. Through work and living life in general, I began to understand how superficial my relationship with the high school girls was. I began to understand what friendship really means, and how your best girlfriends can really be your worst enemies.

Women in general are created to nurture, but nurturing our girlfriends doesn’t necessarily mean we are being good friends. Of course, everyone has various opinions on what being a “good friend” is, but in general we want somebody to lean on during times of crisis, and to have fun with. Wait! It goes deeper than that. As women, we are not problem solvers – we tend to carry on fights way longer than men do. So when our girlfriend has a problem, we lean towards agreeing with her to make her feel better, as opposed to telling her the harsh truth. Let’s say your girlfriend is devastated that her boyfriend doesn’t communicate with her anymore, but you know for a fact that she frequently ignores him. If she was talking to a guy friend, he would straight up tell her that she is in the wrong as well. We would ignore her flaws, and vent about what a jackass he is, and how he should make it right. If we didn’t know what she was doing to him, we wouldn’t typically bother to ask, in fear of offending her.

There you have it. How women can be their girlfriends worst enemies, in a nutshell. Friendship is about support, but support doesn’t necessarily mean agreeing with the other person constantly. It’s about knowing when to tell them the truth, and when to comfort them. One of my best friends is a guy, and let me tell you that we are brutally honest with each other. We have gone weeks without speaking to each other because we didn’t like what the other one said. But at the end of the day, we are still close because we trust each other. I trust him to tell me that I’m wrong when I’m blinded by my own feelings. I trust that he will tell me when something is bugging him, and I know that I can say exactly what is on my mind without him judging me. We have discussed everything possible, and I feel so lucky because he is one of the very few people I have such an honest friendship with. I’m fortunate to have met some girlfriends in college, and together, we spent countless nights telling stories in tears from the darkest moments in our lives, laying out our weaknesses, and discussing our goals and what we love. All without judgement, but instead, with perfectly honest opinions, and a good bottle of wine.